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'A new commaiulnient I si\*o unto you, That vo love one another.' 



S P E E C II 



HO:^^. E.= Ev^ SETTLE, 

OF KENTUCKY, 



HOUSE OF PvEPRESEJ^TATLVES, 



Wedkesday, June 1, 18D3, 



ON THE BILL TO REMOVE DISAIULITIES OF CONFEDERATES 
OF THE LATE WAR. 



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SPEECH 

OP 

HON. E. E. SETTLE. 



The House having under consideration the bill (S. ISTS) to remove all dis- 
abilities imposed by section 3 of the fourteenth amendment to the Consti- 
tution- 
Mr. SETTLE said: 

Mr. Speaker: I tliiuk when the permanent Record of this clay's 
session is made up it would be incomi^lete indeed if some Repre- 
sentative from the South, some man who is supposed to be in sym- 
pathy with the Southern people in their present and their past 
relations to the General Government, did not avail himself of the 
opportunity to respond to the generous sentiments that have been 
uttered on the floor of the House by the gentleman from Ohio and 
the gentlemen from Iowa and Wisconsin in the conduct of this 
bill to-day, for notwithstanding we may all say this is a just bill 
and ought to have become a law years ago, yet we from the South 
must agree that it is none the less a generous bill; and Southeru 
Representatives should not hesitate so to declare in their places 
here, for had we been the victors we might not have been so gen- 
erous as they. 

This bill is but the culmination of the course of events that have 
been gradualh' approaching this point for ten or fifteen years 
past. I have seen it in the present session. I have heard the 
great battle hymn of the South— '-Dixey"— receive as generous 
applause in Northern capitals as was accorded to the "Star- 
Spangled Banner" and "Marching Through Georgia. " And it 
came not from Southern sympathizers, but from the generous 
people of the North, who took that occasion to say, in this way, 
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to tlieir brethren at llie South, ' ' We embrace you and have learned 
to forget all past differences." [Applause.] 

I happened to be at a down-town theater the other evening. In 
the interval between the acts it has become the custom not to go 
out, but to remain and hear the orchestra discourse patriotic 
anthems and airs. After the band had ceased inlaying some gen- 
tleman arose and proposed "Three cheers for McKinley," The 
vast audience gave them with a will. Then three cheers were 
proposed for Dewey, the hero of Manila, which were also responded 
to. And then some gentleman, whom I took to be a military offi- 
cer of rank, arose in his place, and waving his hand in the air 
said, " Three cheers for a united country!" Gentlemen, that sen- 
timent caught me; and it caught that vast house. [Applause.] 

I thank God that I have lived to see this day. We sometimes 
thought that the great war between the States was an unmitigated 
evil, but in the providence of God it, accompanied by other agen- 
cies, has proved to be a great blessing. That war was not of 
chance or of accident. It came as the winds come and as the 
storms come and as all things else come— in response to the eter- 
nal purposes and behests of Him who "holds the wind in His fist 
and the hearts of men in the hollow of His hand." [Applause.] 

The beginning of the war was the acme of that sectional hate 
which had been growing and increasing in bitterness for thirty 
years. The North had no love for the South, and the South had 
no respect for the North. The contlict was irrepressible. The 
world looked on at the magnificent display of courage and forti- 
tude exhibited through four years of battle and strife, and while 
one rebel could not, as he thought at the beginning, wipe out 
five " Yankees," the sequel showed that he could put them to con- 
siderable exertion. [Laughter and applause.] 

When valor and courage and endurance shall no longer com- 
mand the praise of men, when tribute shall be denied to those 
who endured privation without complaint and suffered all man- 
ner of sacrifices without murmur, then we might hesitate to 
unroll the curtain of that past and let its scenes pass in panorama 
before us. But heaven forbid in this day, when one touch of 
nature has made us all akin, that I should fear in this presence to 
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hold up for admiration the prowess of the gallant boys in tho 

trenches and the field, wearing the blue or wearing the gray, who 

gave to the cause of their country their lives, their fortunes, and 

their sacred honor. [Applause.] 

But the end came at last. These Southern knights went down 

to their home, and many of them can not be reached by any pro- 

.vision of earthly statute now. 

Many of those good knights are dust— 

Their good swords rust, 

Their souls are with the saints, we trust. 

They went down to their desolated homes and despoiled fields, 
and without complaint they set about the task, the herculean 
task, of rebuilding those waste places and restoring their ancient 
splendor. Her sons laid down their arms in good faith, and in 
the same spirit they laid their hearts upon the altar of their coun- 
try and took their step to the music of the Union. I do not be- 
lieve, gentlemen, that the American people were ever so iinited 
as they are to-day. The men who stayed at home were the last 
to forgive, but the men who fought have alv/ays been the first to 
forget. [Applause.] 

And now we are hastened to this era of good times by the war 
in which we find ourselves involved. We shall free Cuba, but we 
shall do more than that. We shall free ourselves. The greatest 
of English poets, in speaking of the divine quality of mercy, has 
said that — 

It is twice blest: 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 

If we shall confer a gracious boon upon the people of that un- 
happy island, we shall receive a blessing from Heaven, such per- 
haps as we may not bo ^able to contain. Out of this baptism of 
fire and blood wherewith we are now being baptized we shall come 
forth, I doubt not, new men and new women, clean every whit, 
with sectional hate and sectional bitterness clean gone forever. 
[Applause.] 

That were a consummation devoutly to be wished; that were 
the summum bonum, the great desideratum; that were well worth 
all the treasure we may expend and all the blood that may be 
shed. In the language of the great Kentucky editor, this war has 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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alreadj- forever eliminated tiie sectioual contest. There are thou- 
sands of old Confederates who are to-day happy in the thought 
that before they have been called to join the silent bivouac of the 
dead, they have seen the North and the South united in battle 
array beneath the Stars and Stripes. 

Flag of the free heart's hope and home! 

By aBgel hands to valor given: 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were born in heaven. 

[Applause,] 

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